That reminds me: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Why wouldn’t the Council of Watchers buy that poor girl a car or a cell phone?
The Watcher’s Council has some really peculiar features. Giles, the Watcher assigned to the only active Slayer in the world, is treated like a minor functionary, who doesn’t get invited to the big meetings or get the important memos in a timely fashion; he only gets attention from the Council when they think he’s violated one of their rules. My headcanon is that for a long time, supernatural threats have been a relatively minor problem, and the Council has therefore become a place where everyone’s focus has been on internal politics and squabbling - so they’re not really prepared when a Hellmouth opens (as opposed to an inactive Hellmouth just causing local weirdness) and genuine world-threatening stuff occurs every May.
Flipping through a few of the old SDMB Staff Reports reminded me of one example of a whole show that wouldn’t fly very well today: